I have made a decision to alter and/or remove various restrictions on Voat. I’ve thought a lot about this and it’s something both @Atko and I believe needs to be reevaluated.
Voat has always had a problem with spam. @Amalek would spam posts and hijack the new queue making it unusable. MH101 and then later @SaneGoatiSwear would hijack comment pages making them unusable. The rules Voat uses were put in place in to combat this behavior. They are old rules, mostly remaining unchanged from the initial versions of this site. Most, if not all, of the rules were in direct response to spam attacks. It was never Voat’s intention to limit non-spam accounts, but this is what has happened as an indirect result of these rules.
Voat will not keep in place a system that permanently limits a segment of users from debating and conversing. This isn’t Free Speech as I see it or as I want it.
Voat will shortly be going live with a new code base, and I want to have a new system designed and ready for when this happens, so I am posting this announcement to get feedback from the community.
The main areas of concern:
- Commenting restrictions on negative CCP accounts that aren't spamming their comments
- Limiting any account that spam comments
TL;DR
We need to allow unpopular opinions while preventing comment spam.
How do we do it?
All options are on the table
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806
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Mick ago
Mate, i don't think they were. I'm not saying give them the big power hammer but I would trust @PeaceSeeker not to abuse that power if they had it and I'd be the first to bash down Putts door if it was abused :)
10258144? ago
Thanks Mick. I came to a logical conclusion upon pursuing the suggestion for a new restrictions system that I was considering, a conclusion that determined the only way to deal with non-spamming trolls or shills was mod intervention. By stating this kevdude has been able to launch a witchhunt against me, even though upon a simple reflection on that conclusion I am able to see that the system I am proposing, if that is the logical conclusion, if obviously not desirable.
But whatever; he can have his fun.
Mick ago
Hey, these ideas rolling around are good and worthy of debate. I looked back at the suggestion I made yesterday and thought, "yeah nah, I've changed my mind. Instead, lets just lift restrictions quietly and see what happens," which I mentioned to @kevdude earlier. You up for some anarchy, Kev, Peace? :)